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Meesho and Groww, the blockbuster stock-market debutants of 2025, are up for their first encounter with public shareholders and their return-coloured view of company decisions.

One of the first things they’ll weigh on is these companies’ employee stock option plans (Esops), impacting how attractive they’re as an employer post-listing.

Most companies’ Esop policies undergo a dramatic shift once they list, having to meet investor expectations.

In fact, “Esop is one matter that public investors push back the most on,” said Hetal Dalal, president and chief operating officer of the proxy-advisory firm, Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IiAS). “They question if the scheme contours align the interests of employees with their own.”

In 2025, IiAS tracked about 1,200 companies, and shareholders rejected 19 resolutions related to Esops across nine companies, including Jindal Steel and Bajaj Consumer Care, said Dalal.

There is already pushbackBusiness StandardGroww faces proxy advisory pushback over Esop, board nomination proposals in the case of Groww. IiAS is recommending shareholders to vote against the company’s Esop policy for “lack of clarity” with respect to its exercise priceAlso called strike price, it's the fixed, predetermined cost an employee pays to buy or sell the company's shares and for long vesting periodsThe time an employee must work for a company, after being granted stock options, to earn its full ownership of 10–20 years.

Groww only needs to look at the Esop battles of foodtech giant Eternal (formerly Zomato), insurance marketplace PB Fintech, digital-payments firm One 97 Communications, and fashion retailer Nykaa, to know what tips the scale in favour of investors or employees.

These new-age tech companies, that’ve been listed since 2021, are now worth about $140 billion, according to a mediaInc42New IPOs Push New Age Tech Stocks’ Total Market Cap Past $140 Bn report. Since most employee stock-option pools account for 5–10% of a company’s shareholding, there’s nearly $7–14 billion in potential wealth to be made from stock options from those companies, said Sandeep Jethwani, co-founder of wealth-management firm Dezerv.